Jerome, A Poor Man eBook

“That’s all very well, but how do you
suppose the tree feels?” said the Squire, hotly.

“Not bein’ a tree, an’ never havin’
been a tree, so’s to remember it, I ain’t
able to say,” returned the old man, in a dry
voice; “but, mebbe, lookin’ at it on general
principles, it ain’t no more painful for a tree
to be cut down into a railroad-sleeper than it is for
a man to be cut down into an angel.”

John Jennings laughed.

“You’d make a good lawyer on the defence,”
said the Squire, good-naturedly, “but, by the
Lord Harry, if all the trees of the earth were mine,
men might live in tents and travel in caravans till
doomsday for all I’d cut one down!”

The Colonel and Jennings did not go into the mill,
but they nodded and sang out good-naturedly to Jerome
as they passed. He could not leave—­he
had an extra man to feed the saw that day, and had
been rushing matters since daybreak—­but
he looked out at them with a radiant face from his
noisy interior, full of the crude light of fresh lumber
and sawdust.

The Squire’s friendly notice had pleased his
very soul.

“That’s a smart boy,” panted the
Colonel, when they had passed.

“Yes, sir; he’s the smartest boy in this
town,” assented the Squire, with a nod of enthusiasm.

Not long after they emerged from the woods into the
road they reached
Jennings’s house, and he left his friends.

The Colonel lived some quarter of a mile farther on.
He had reached his gate, when he said, abruptly, to
the Squire, “Look here, Eben, you remember a
talk we had once about Jerome Edwards and your girl?”

The Squire stared at him. “Yes; why?”

“Nothing, only seeing him just now set me to
wondering if you were still of the same mind about
it.”

“If being willing that Lucina should have the
man she sets her heart on is the same mind, of course
I am; but, good Lord, Jack, that’s all over!
He hasn’t been to the house for a year, and Lucina
never thinks of him!”

“Nothing; seeing Jerome and his mill brought
it to mind. Well, I’ll be along to-night.”

“That’s all over,” the Squire called
out again to the Colonel, going slowly up the hill
to the house door. However, when he got home,
he questioned Abigail.

“I haven’t heard Lucina mention Jerome
Edwards’s name for months,” said she,
“and he never comes here; but she seems perfectly
contented and happy. I think that’s all
over.”

“I thought so,” said Eben.

Abigail was preparing the punch, for the Squire expected
his friends that evening. Jennings came first;
some time after Means and Lamson arrived. They
had a strange air of grave excitement and elation.

When the game of cards was fairly under way, the Colonel
played in a manner which confused them all.